About
My research sits at the intersection of social science theory, natural resource management, and ecosystem service practice; I apply theory to practice, and vice versa, to examine the interaction of environmental values, policies, and programs that lead to different management outcomes.
With a Ph.D. in environmental, community, and natural resource sociology and climate adaptation science, I focus on individual and institutional reflexivity to investigate how diverse actors and institutions think about their roles in complex social-ecological systems related to the management of natural resources, public lands, and dependent wildlife. I do this work at the landscape scale, through both qualitative and quantitative methodologies in collaboration with researchers and other stakeholders in order to understand and promote community wellbeing and resilience in sustainable and equitable ways. My work is often post-normal in design and aimed at promoting these normative goals, but my methods are conducted with scientific rigor. Some of these methods are necessarily transdisciplinary, which is to say that I utilize integrated multidisciplinary research methods and collaborate with scholars from diverse social and biophysical science backgrounds as well as natural resource managers and other stakeholders. This also means that I try to draw from multiple ways of knowing, for instance, I actively seek out indigenous stewardship knowledge.
I am building a research program based on post-normal, participatory, and transdisciplinary research methods where project goals, methods, and outcomes are co-produced with stakeholders so that meaningful investigation is relevant to more people, including communities who have been historically underrepresented and/or under-resourced, such as resource-dependent, rural communities, and indigenous communities.
I am currently part of the Co-Management of Fire Risk Transmission Research partnership, working with Laurie Yung to examine the policies and practices that advance cross-boundary collaboration and governance across scales.